


There are Easier Ways to Ask a Man Out

by Ghrelt



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Assassins AU, Fanfic of Fanfic, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:55:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28470483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghrelt/pseuds/Ghrelt
Summary: Opposite perspective of Drake'sThe Hunter, The Hunted.  Read it first and this will make far more sense.  Assassins who meet when they go after the same target.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67





	There are Easier Ways to Ask a Man Out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Hunter, The Hunted](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422468) by [Drake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drake/pseuds/Drake). 



The plan wasn’t supposed to be to kill the assassin.

The plan was supposed to be to kill the mark and steal the contract.

The _plan_ was to piss him off.

Not that Nicolo cared much how the assassin felt. Or even who he was. He was just trying to mess with him.

He was getting a little bored of the whole ‘kill-the-assassin-kill-the-mark’ thing. Plus it was making him predictable. Predictable, when you’re dealing with assassins, gets you killed. No matter how disorganised and isolated they were as a group.

Bunch of lone ranger idiots looking for a quick buck.

Nobody hears about the others he’s killed. Because he’s quiet about it. Sneaky. 

He doesn’t use the damn sniper rifle.

Among assassin circles Nicolo’s known for the rifle.

Not for poison. Or suffocation. Or a knife. Or an inconvenient fall.

Because he doesn’t want the professionals to know what he’s actually about. 

They don’t know about the rest because they don’t want to see it.

So he changes things up just often enough to keep them from considering banding together to take him out.

That being said, this particular assassin just showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Surprised him. So he’d downed him with a pistol shot to the head.

Shame, really. He has nice hair.

Had. Nice hair. Now his brains are all over the floor and Nicolo has to make the hit on the target quick and dirty instead of the pristine kill he’d planned.

He packs up his things and is gone in minutes, barely sparing the dead assassin a second thought.

For about three weeks. When he sees him. Again. Not surprised this time.

Except for the bone-deep shock of seeing someone whose head you blew apart skulking around in the dark and he’d have thought he was mistaken but he’d know that hair anywhere.

How?

_How??_

This shouldn’t be possible.

His brain is still trying to wrap itself around the unlogic of the situation when he pulls the trigger.

“Get up from that and call it playing fair,” he whispers to the corpse as he passes.

And then watches from a balcony, just in case.

And minutes later said corpse gets up, glances around like he _knows_ , sending chills up Nicolo’s spine.

And then sees the corpse again weeks later when the man takes literally the stupidest job known to humankind.

“It’s not even an assassination,” Nicolo mutters to himself as he watches from blocks away.

“ ‘s a damn bodyguard job. Stupidest bodyguard job in the world.”

He wonders if the man is taunting him.

And why wouldn’t he? 

Nicolo di Ginoa has a reputation. Take out the assassin. Take out the target.

And twice has he failed in the former. With the same man, no less.

It’s become a bit of an obsession, were he to be completely honest.

He knows the man’s name is Yusuf, but he goes by Joe.

Who does that. Who takes a perfectly good name and shortens it to a nearly meaningless single syllable?

Nicolo shakes his head, trying to physically shed the thought.

He knows the man works with a woman named Nile. She’s smart. Works with a few different official agencies.

And Yusuf only takes jobs with marks who deserve to die.

Until now.

It gave Nicolo a pang of guilt, when he found out. Yusuf is not the kind of man he was trying to target. But he’s alive, regardless of Nicolo’s best efforts. So perhaps the world has a sense of balance, after all.

Or God has a sense of humor.

This particular contract is beneath a man like Yusuf. It’s infuriating. Why would he do this, except to taunt _him?_

So now he’s watching the man chew out the rich idiot with the vindictive ex. Nicolo could have shot Frank any time in the past week or so. He should be a stain on the floor, gathering flies.

But Frank doesn’t actually deserve to die. He’s just a moron.

So where does that leave them?

Perhaps this is where this was always leading. Nicolo is trapped. He must do _something_ , but what? He cannot—or will not—pull the trigger. It would serve no purpose.

So what?

The assassin looks up, as though he’s caught the tail of Nicolo’s thoughts and is following it to the source. And then he looks _right at him_.

The feel of those eyes on him quakes through him like lightning. Logically, he knows the setting sun must have glinted off his scope. He was perhaps a little too careless with his choice of perch today.

Or maybe he subconsciously chose it on purpose.

No matter; when the man has the gall to _raise his hand and wave_ , Nicolo’s vision goes red. He packs up the rifle with swift, jerking motions.

This ends now.

…

And that is how he finds himself staring into too-brown eyes, forearm across a throat he can feel swallowing against the pressure.

Sheer impulse carried on the back of rage drove him to face the insolent bastard. Face to face. End this, once and for all.

In said rage, he never considered that ending things once and for all, face to face with a man who is seemingly immortal, involves dying, yourself.

Fortunately his opponent does not seem to have come to the conclusion, either.

The bastard calls him _Nicky._

If he wasn’t already infuriated, that would have done it. Instead he leans in harder, ignoring all the shattered glass around them.

The man keeps _talking._

The more he speaks, the less sense he makes. 

He thinks Nicolo did this to him.

He thinks this might be fate.

The daft fool uses the word _soulmate._

And openly admits to flirting. 

With him.

With Nicolo di Genoa.

Whom has killed him twice and in this very conversation offered to do it again a third time.

Flirting.

With him.

Nicolo admits to being intrigued, though intrigued is not the right word for it.

Stunned. Shocked. Flabbergasted. Dumbfounded.

Like, literally rendered more stupid by this revelation.

And then rendered even more so by the feel of lips against his.

His universe shifts on its axis and he feels everything he knows slipping away. Every cell of his being coils around this moment. This new truth.

The odd distant feeling of his existence reshaping itself to weave around this man.

It’s really the least he can do, to take the man up on the coffee.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't think of a good concept for a Christmas gift for Drake. Fortunately, her big bang was more than enough inspiration. So here's a New Year's/Good Riddance to the Year that Wasn't gift for her. 
> 
> ♥U Drake


End file.
